Career
His career-high singles ranking is World Number. 2008 Brands began 2008 ranked Number. 220. After a few unimpressive tournaments to start the year, he beat northern
132 Aisam Qureshi and northern
193 Simon Stadler en route to a semifinal Challenger finish in Germany in February. In March, he made the quarters of a Challenger in Japan before losing to northern
124 Yen-Hsun Lu, then reached the quarters of a Challenger in Sarajevo, beating northern 169 Matthias Bachinger.
In May, Brands reached the quarterfinals at two more Challengers, beating northern
66 Michael Berrer and northern 114 Brian Dabul, while also winning the doubles title in one and reaching the doubles final in the other. Then, with his ranking at a career-high of northern
210, he beat northern
123 Nicolás Massú, northern 151 Pablo Andújar (who beat him a week earlier), and northern 198 Alex Bogomolov to qualify into the main draw of the 2008 French Open.
2009 Brands made it to the semifinals of the 2009 Bayerische Motoren Werke Open, before losing to Mikhail Youzhny.
He lost in the first round of the 2009 French Open to Robert Kendrick. 2010 Brands again bowed out in the first round of the, but he put up a great performance only to fall short against the eighth seed Frenchman and world northern
10 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Brands made his Wimbledon debut at the 2010 tournament, defeating Igor Andreev in the first round.
He continued his run in the second round by upsetting world northern
5 and seventh seed Nikolay Davydenko, who was returning from injury. In the fourth round, Brands lost to eventual finalist Tomáš Berdych. At the 2010 United States Open tournament Brands was defeated by countryman Benjamin Becker in the first round in straight sets.
He then accepted a Wildcard for an Association of Tennis Professionals Challenger Tour event in Braşov, Romania where he bowed out in the first round.
The Open de Moselle in Metz was his next tournament. He fell to Tommy Robredo in the first round.
He reached his first quarterfinal of the season at the Thailand Open in Bangkok defeating Illya Marchenko and Thiemo de Bakker, where he saved a matchpoint. He was again knocked out by Benjamin Becker.
2012 Brands lost to Marin Čilić in the Croatia Open.
2013 Brands entered the Australian Open beating 27th seed Martin Klizan before losing to an in-form Bernard Tomic. In the French Open he drew Rafael Nadal in the first round. He shocked Rafa, winning the opening set 6–4 with a punishing serve and huge flat groundstrokes, reminiscent of both Söderling and Rosol, who upset Rafa in the French Open and Wimbledon, respectively.
Brands went ahead in the second set tie breaker 3–0, but his level slightly dropped and Nadal"s rose.
Brands let down slightly in the next game and was broken for the first time in the match. Nadal was quoted by the New York Times as saying, "I don’t know what he"s ranked, but he can’t be ranked 60th playing like that.
I can’t believe lieutenant” Singles: 11 (6–5) Doubles: 5 (3–2) Singles Doubles Current till 2016 Australian Open. Wins over Top 10"s per season.